Welcome! This guide will get you started painting and sharing your own original works of pixel art, plus a few tips on making your paintings into playable puzzles.

To create a painting, go to Paint it Back's main menu, click on Workshop, then choose Create.
To play community created paintings, go to main menu, click on Workshop, then click Play.

After clicking Workshop/Create, you'll see what is basically a simple paint program. You can create a painting from scratch using just this editor, but this is a very simple paint program, missing many of the editing features you may be used to using in your favorite paint program (Photoshop, etc.) You can use another paint program in conjunction with Paint it Back's picture editor by importing and exporting a PNG file.

A painting in Paint it Back is technically just a bitmap image with a few important caveats:

• A white pixel translates to an empty space in the black and white puzzle that you solve.
  
• Any color besides white translates to a black space in the black and white puzzle that you solve.
  
• The image must be a valid size. There's a range of sizes to choose from between 5x5 and 40x40.

Workflow to creating a painting:

• Choose a size for your painting by clicking New Image or import an existing PNG image.
  
• Paint.
  
• Type in a title for your painting.
  
• Make sure the painting can be played as a puzzle by clicking Validate Master, Normal or Pro.
  
• If the painting fails validation, make changes to the painting until it passes validation.
  
• Play test to make sure it's fun and not insultingly easy.
  
• Click Upload Painting, confirm a few options, and after a few seconds to a few minutes, it'll be out there for everyone to play!

New Painting
Starts a new painting with a new title.

Load Painting
Load a saved painting from your computer.

Save Painting
Save a painting to your computer.

New Image
Allows you to pick a new image size for your current painting. Can also use this to erase the current image.

Import PNG
Loads a PNG image from your computer as the painting's image. The size of the image must be valid. You can see a list of the accepted sizes if you click on New Image.

Export PNG
Saves the current image to your computer as a PNG image. Use this if you want to edit your image in a better paint program, then use Import PNG to bring it back in to the editor.

Move Image
Nudge your painting up, down, left, or right. Use this to get your painting positioned to your liking.

Change Image Size
Makes your image bigger or smaller by adding or subtracting pixels to the sides of the image. Good to use in conjunction with Move Image to position your painting.

Upload Painting
Click this when you're ready to share your painting with the community.
Workshop Visibility: Set if you want the painting visible to Public, Friends Only, or Private.
Change Note: Use this if you feel like saying something about the changes in this version of the painting.
Workshop Terms of Service: Before you can upload a painting, you must agree to the Workshop Terms of Service. Click the button to go to a page where you can read more and accept the terms...if they're agreeable to ya.

Play Test
Test out playing your painting in Paint it Back.

Workshop
This will take you to the Workshop webpage for the painting in the editor. This button will be greyed out until successfully you upload the painting.

Guide
Opens this guide.

Grid
Toggles a grid on/off with buttons to adjust the color and thickness.

Validate Master
Validate Pro
Validate Normal
Tries to solve the painting's black and white puzzle in Master, Pro or Normal.
Check out this section: Normal, Pro and Master.
And also this section: Validating the Painting.

Show Puzzle
Shows the painting as the black and white puzzle that players will solve.

Undo/Redo
Undo and redo painting pixel edits.

Those squares of color on the right are color swatches.

• Click on any swatch to select it as the current painting color.
  
• The big topmost swatch shows the current painting color.
  
• To pick a specific color using RGB sliders, click on the topmost swatch.
  
• Right click on a pixel in the painting to select it as the current color.
  
• To save the current color in a swatch, right click on the target swatch.
  
• The white color swatch is the eraser. Painting with white is the same as erasing.

Title
Enter a title for the painting here. Required.

Exhibit
If you want this painting to be included in an exhibit, enter a name for the exhibit here.
This is like storing your painting in a room of other paintings with a similar theme.
Example - the exhibit "Big Time Bugs" could include the painting with the title "Deer Tick Flying First Class." When you play community created paintings, you'll be able to see all the paintings in an exhibit grouped together.

Paintings are classified as Normal, Pro or Master.
Normal = 10x12 or smaller.
Pro = 10x15 to 20x20.
Master = 20x24 to 40x40.

A big painting (Pro and Master) can be played on a smaller size by splitting it up into sections.
- A Pro painting can be played as a Normal painting.
- A Master painting can be played as a Pro or Normal painting.
For example - a 30x30 Master painting played on Pro would be split into 4 15x15 sections. That same Master painting played on Normal would be split into 9 10x10 sections.

If you want your big painting playable in easier sections, you need to validate the other sizes. So if you want your Pro painting to be playable on Normal, you need to validate it for Normal, too. If you want the painting to be playable only on Pro, then don't validate it for Normal.

In order to prevent "bad" paintings from being uploaded, a painting must be validated first. When you click on Validate, the painting is tested to see if it can be solved. If the test results say that only one solution was found, then the painting checks out and can be uploaded. If it says that two solutions were found, then you will need to make edits to your painting until validating results in only one solution.

What does that mean, only one solution?
Here's an example. Check out this super-simple 2x2 painting:


Here's one way to paint the picture (solution 1):


Here's another way to paint the picture (solution 2):


So the above painting would fail validation because it has two solutions.

Getting two solutions to a painting happens fairly often. You'll be able to see the pixels that are causing the problem by clicking on the "Show Solution" button to toggle back and forth between the two solutions. To fix this, play around with adding more color pixels in the problem area or erasing color pixels (by changing their color to white.)

• Avoid the pixel pattern shown above in the 2x2 example. Wherever that shows up in your painting it has a chance of causing validation to fail.
  
• A thin 1 pixel line may cause validation to fail. Try thickening the line by adding more color pixels along it.
  
• Lone pixels could also cause validation to fail. Try adding more color, moving them around, or just erasing them.
  
• Consider inverting white and color areas - it may make your painting look or play better:
  
• Try not to have too many full rows and columns of all white or all color - they can make your painting too easy to solve.
  
• Play test and make sure it plays as a good puzzle. Paintings should both look good and play well!